Various interactive applications allow a user to speak or enter text, sometimes including natural language, and have a dialog with a computational entity. For example, an airline information system may comprise a natural language interactive voice response (IVR) system which interacts with a customer by providing a series of choices for the customer (e.g., by a recorded voice). The customer may select from among various options by speaking a natural language response. For example, a customer may request flight status information, reward mileage balance information and upgrade status information. Additional options may be presented to the customer in response to a selection of a prior option. For example, if a customer requests flight status information in response to an initial prerecorded greeting from the IVR system, another prerecorded announcement may prompt the user to state the flight number, date, departure and destination cities, or other pertinent information. In general, such interactive voice response systems are designed and built with significant investment of time and money. In addition, the design of such systems often require specialized knowledge of computer programming and network design in addition to knowledge of specific subject matter in which the system is deployed (e.g., in-depth knowledge of airline services).